Lined Basket

Here is a quick project to carry your handsewing, knitting or good books in. How about putting quiet activities in it for your kiddos at church? It takes less than an hour (including rummaging through recycling to find cardboard).

You will need an old basket, fabric, glue or hot glue gun, cardboard, and a scrap of batting or other cushy stuff. Here is how I did it:

Cut a strip of fabric 3 inches taller than the basket and an inch or two longer than the inside of the basket. (You can use a string to measure around the inside of the basket, then lay that out to figure the length, adding an inch for seams, and an inch for good measure)

Sew the ends together to make a band that will fit in your basket.

Iron a 1 inch hem in the top of this band.
You could stitch this hem in place, but it doesn't seem to need it.

Glue the band inside the basket using a hot glue gun.
(Place the bead of glue just at the top edge of the basket)

Here is the bottom of the basket with the bottom edge of the fabric laying neatly for easy placement of the bottom pad.

To make the bottom pad, cover a piece of cardboard cut to a size that will fit nicely inside your basket.  Glue on the cotton batting - or other cushy stuff. I used spray adhesive for this step, but any glue will work fine. I love spray adhesive. A new favorite.

Cut a piece of fabric 1 inch larger than the cardboard pad all around edges.

Lay the wrong side of the fabric against the padded side of the cardboard.

Pull the fabric up over the edges of the pad with the fluffy stuff down.
Glue around edges using hot glue gun.
You can poke pins into it to hold it if necessary, or use closepins.

Put the pad in the bottom of the basket. I didn't glue mine down since it fits tightly.

Now fill with your favorite project, or with goodies for a gift.

When you make one, put in on the flickr group for us all to see.

Now I'm off to Korean Martial Arts with my boys with a project in my new basket to work on while waiting...

p.s. when i started this project i thought this would be a fun one for you, lizzy :)